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Sea Levels Will Rise For Centuries Even If Greenhouse Gas Emissions Goals Are Me

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Weather Channel: Sea levels will continue to rise for the next three centuries even if governments meet carbon emissions pledges for 2030 set in the Paris climate agreement, a new study indicates. Greenhouse gas emissions from 2016 to 2030 alone would cause sea levels to increase nearly 8 inches (20 cm) by 2300, research led by Climate Analytics and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research showed. And that doesn't take into account the effects of already irreversible melting of the Antarctic ice sheet, according to a news release about the study. "Our results show that what we do today will have a huge effect in 2300. Twenty centimeters is very significant; it is basically as much sea-level rise as we've observed over the entire 20th century. To cause that with only 15 years of emissions is quite staggering," said Climate Analytics' Alexander Nauels, lead author of the study. The 8-inch increase is one-fifth of the nearly 40-inch total rise in sea levels expected by 2300, according to the study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. More than half of the 8-inch increase can be attributed to emissions from the world's top five polluters: China, the United States, the European Union, India and Russia, the study found. "Only stringent near-term emission reductions" aimed at preventing global temperatures from rising more than the Paris agreement goal would provide a chance of limiting long-term sea level rise to below 40 inches, the study said. Global greenhouse gas emissions, however, have not shown a sign of peaking since the adoption of the Paris agreement and the individual countries' pledges "are inadequate to put the global community on track to meet the Paris agreement Long-term Temperature Goal by the end of the 21st century."